On Friday, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Women’s Law Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request as part of an investigation into the Department of Health and Human Services’s new “Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom,” a Trump-era creation devoted to promoting discrimination in health care.
The FOIA request marks the first step in launching a legal challenge to the new division, established on Jan. 18.
The top civil rights official at the Department of Health and Human Services is creating the Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom to protect doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to take part in procedures like abortion or treat certain people because of moral or religious objections.
"Never forget that religious freedom is a primary freedom, that it is a civil right that deserves enforcement and respect," said Roger Severino, the director of HHS's Office for Civil Rights, at a ceremony to announce the new division.
The establishment of the division reverses an Obama-era policy that barred health care workers from refusing to treat transgender individuals or people who have had or are seeking abortions.
Just a day after the administration announced the division’s creation, HHS sought to expand its powers. Should the expansion be implemented, the division would be able to not just protect but promote discrimination, according to the CRR and NWLC.
In a press release issued on Friday, the organizations said:
One day after the administration announced the new office, HHS issued a proposed rule that would drastically expand the scope of the division’s enforcement. The rule would encourage providers to discriminate against patients and to deny health care, including abortion, under the pretext of religious freedom.
Both the division’s creation and the proposed rule were months in the making for the Trump administration. Proponents of (actual) civil rights have long anticipated such schemes, given Severino’s record.
A small cadre of politically prominent religious activists inside the Department of Health and Human Services have spent months quietly planning how to weaken federal protections for abortion and transgender care — a strategy that's taking shape in a series of policy moves that took even their own staff by surprise.
Those officials include Roger Severino, an anti-abortion Catholic lawyer who now runs the Office of Civil Rights and last week laid out new protections allowing health care workers with religious or moral objections to abortion and other procedures to opt out. Shannon Royce, the agency's key liaison with religious and grass-roots organizations, has also emerged as a pivotal player.
Gretchen Borchelt, NWLC vice president for reproductive rights and health, explained the request in simple terms in Friday’s press release.
“We filed this FOIA request because we believe this is a solution in search of a problem that does not exist. Instead of devoting resources to an office focused only on protecting those who would use their religious or moral beliefs to deny patients care, the Trump administration needs to enforce non-discrimination laws and make sure patients get the care they need.”
CRR has already succeeded in previous efforts to combat Trump administration attacks on reproductive rights.
In October, the Trump administration issued interim final rules to restrict access to birth control by creating a broad exemption allowing virtually any employer or university with a religious or moral objection to refuse to cover contraception for their employees or students. The Center filed suit against the rules in federal court, which have since been blocked from going into effect by courts in Pennsylvania and California.
Assuming Trump’s HHS honors the FOIA request (but even if it doesn’t), consider this notice of the next major battle when it comes to fighting Trump’s efforts to promote discrimination in health care.